


Watchman

by harlequindreaming (armydoctor)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, slight first POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armydoctor/pseuds/harlequindreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>(I do have a miracle for you.)(It just has to wait a little longer.)(Please wait.)</i>
</p><p>Walk away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watchman

**Author's Note:**

> Short ficlet I wrote based off a .gif set I found on the Johnlock tag. Imported from my Tumblr.

_Walk away._

(Mycroft has said.)(Stay away.)(It will only hurt all the more.)

The vacant room in the apartment building across 221 Baker Street offers such a good vantage point. From the balcony he can look right down into 221B’s window. People never think to look up, anyway.

They only look up when you tell them to.

( _Look up_.)(I’m sorry.)(I had to.)(You look sad.)(Are you only looking sad because I cannot see you?)

Sherlock stands on the balcony and watches John sit in his chair, _his_ , not John’s plush chair with the Union Jack pillow but Sherlock’s leather chair, which is gray like the rest of the both of them. John has been sitting there as long as Sherlock has been standing here - the better part of two hours now, Sherlock thinks. Sherlock watches John and John… stares at something Sherlock cannot see. The skull? The telly? His coat?

(Mycroft said they gave it back to him.)(Evidence be damned.)(Said Lestrade had said John had been through enough.)(Has he washed it?)(No, would have shown in the report.)(Maybe Mycroft didn’t put it in the report.)

John sits and stares and Sherlock’s phone chimes in his ratty gray jacket pocket. He has a time limit, he knows. He shouldn’t even be here, really. Shouldn’t be standing across 221B watching John try and hold it together, but there is no way he can go through everything he has to without coming back, once in a blue moon, to see what he is fighting for. What he is fighting to come back to.

(Move.)(Leave.)(He is safe.)(Mycroft said to leave as soon as I knew he was safe.)(I know.)(Of course he is safe.)(It will all have been for nothing if he is not.)( _John_.)

Another chime. Insistent. Mycroft telling Sherlock to leave, likely. It is dangerous, and not the good kind. Sherlock still has jobs to do, people to see - people to kill. His hands are so dirty now, but they are dirty in the way John’s are. They are both soldiers, now, if for different causes. John killed for the sake of his country; Sherlock kills for the sake of a man he loves and wants to keep alive to love more.

(Would you have done the same?)(Silly.)(Of course you would have.)(Perhaps not even.)(You would have followed it all the way through.)(Died.)(Would have hated you for it.)(No, _lie_.)(Would have hated myself for not stopping you.)(Still lie.)(Could never hate you.)

A ringing now, soft so as not to draw attention. A call. Something must have come up. A lead, perhaps. A hit. Different meaning to him, now. Sherlock ends the call without picking up. Opens his mouth as if to say something, but who is there to hear him? John, on the other side of the street, at the window of a flat Sherlock can no longer call home? No. No one will hear, because dead men tell no tales. And Sherlock is a dead man.

(I do have a miracle for you.)(It just needs to wait a little longer.)(Please wait.)(You will, won’t you?)(Because you asked.)(Just wait.)(Goodbye, John.)

_Walk away._


End file.
